Orion Is In Orbit After Successful Launch From Cape

will Splash Down in Pacific Ocean at 11:29 a.m.

ABOVE LIVESTREAM: Watch the Orion launch coverage as the flight test is scheduled to end with Orion splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at about 11:29 a.m. EST.

ABOVE VIDEO:REPLAY OF LAUNCH

BREVARD COUNTY • CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – NASA’s new spacecraft, Orion, is in orbit after a successful launch at 7:05 a.m. Friday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The next milestone, expected at about 9 a.m. EST, is the second engine burn of the Delta IV Heavy rocket, to lift Orion to its peak altitude of 3,600 miles.

Orbiting above Earth attached to the Delta IV second stage, Orion’s telemetry shows all systems working well on NASA’s newest spacecraft designed for astronauts. The next major stages in the flight test will begin with the re-ignition of the second stage engine.

That 4 1/2-minute burn will send Orion out of low Earth orbit and on a path to fly 3,600 miles high before returning to Earth. The flight test is scheduled to end with Orion splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at about 11:29 a.m. EST.

Orion is designed to take humans beyond Earth orbit into deep space, including missions to an asteroid and eventually Mars.